SIX MONTHS AGO, in the Kingdom of Bahrain, an interesting television experiment, broadcast throughout the Middle East, came and went without much fanfare. Reality TV, in the form of Big Brother Middle East, made its debut, was embraced by viewers, then in just over a week was shown the door by a radical Islamist minority. Over the last few years, there have been all kinds of promises, or Panglossian utterances if you're skeptically inclined, about what we occidentals will bring to the region. Democracy's missionaries, forever in search of receptive agents of change in the Middle East, are in the habit of directing their message to people's better angels, with whom only a small minority are acquainted. They might, however, do better to contemplate people's baser natures, with which most of us tend to be on a first-name basis. The "pursuit of happiness" or the "blessings of liberty" might seem like enigmatic abstractions. But everyone can get their head around the unalienable right to watch bad TV. Or almost everyone. Which is what brings us to Bahrain. A former British protectorate, Bahrain is generally considered a liberalized Arab nation. This, of course, is like being called the prettiest girl on the Bulgarian shot put team. The king appoints all the ministers and judges. The parliament is there to balance his power, or would be, if he didn't appoint half of them too. While the Khalifa ruling family has made some head-fakes toward enlightenment, such as letting women run for office and recently
emptying the jails of political prisoners after torturing them for a few decades, it's difficult to practice democratic politics in Bahrain, since political parties are banned, and criticizing Islam or the king can earn you a fine or a prison sentence. Still, Bahrain is "liberalized" by the Arab world's low standards, since it's a place where the unelected regime provides the right to quality shopping, to getting a drink, or to securing the services of a prostitute (technically illegal, but readily available down on aptly named "Exhibition Road," in case you're making travel plans). It's good enough for the U.S. Navy to make Bahrain home to the Fifth Fleet. And it's why, on weekends, the 16-mile-long King Fahd Causeway sees Saudis on holiday beating it over the bridge to escape their own homeland's fanatical religious strictures. With Bahrain prohibiting picture-taking in their bars and hotels, as even uptight Wahhabists need to let down their kaffiyehs now and then, tourists would do well to remember a simple maxim: Bahrain--it's not a good place to practice democracy, it is a good place to practice hypocrisy. This being the climate, Bahrain seemed the ideal setting for the enterprising Big Brother producers. It's all slightly redolent of Christopher Buckley's new comic novel Florence of Arabia, in which State Department do-goodnik Florence Farfaletti sets about emancipating Arab women by launching a satellite channel in the fictional emirate of Matar ("pronounced, for reasons unclear, 'Mutter'"), where burkha-clad talk-show denizens make subversive happy talk: "My next guest--not that I can see her--are you there Farah?"
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